


seconds or moments gone or to come

by besidemethewholedamntime



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, Light Angst, Love, set in those four years in space
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-25
Updated: 2020-08-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26113309
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/besidemethewholedamntime/pseuds/besidemethewholedamntime
Summary: '“All I know is that you once told me you weren’t strong enough to live in a world that didn’t have me in it. I’m asking if you still feel the same way. I’m – I’m asking you if you can go on without me, Fitz. And if you can’t, then I’m asking you to do it anyway.”'Jemma ensures her family would be okay if the worst should happen. Late night conversations with a happy ending, set during those four years in space.
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 26
Kudos: 85





	seconds or moments gone or to come

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This was one of those train ideas that I always seem to get and that I just couldn't let go of. It's really not as angsty as the title summary made out, but I feel like anything else didn't really give a true representation of what the fic was about and I didn't want to mislead anyone. 
> 
> Originally there is a version that is much longer and much angstier than this one (though of course with a happy ending) but I went with this because it's softer and nicer and (I hope) overall better. 
> 
> Title from the quote from Malorie Blackman. The line in the fic (you'll know it when you find it) from Jane Austen. 
> 
> I hope you enjoy!

_“But remember this if nothing else: I love you more than there are words or stars. I love you more than there are thoughts and feelings. I love you more than there are seconds or moments gone or to come. I love you.”_

Jemma has gotten used to Fitz’s heartbeat. It’s a funny thing to think about, especially as they now live on a Zephyr ship in amongst the stars and there are so many other important things that she’s had to become used to. The feeling of never staying still, for instance. Now they are constantly moving, and though that might have been what she hoped for when she was younger, now she often finds herself wishing they could just take a particular moment and freeze it, and live in it forever.

Fitz’s heart though is something she has gotten used to because now it is always _there._ The sound of it beating underneath her cheek as she lays her head on his chest to fall asleep at night – indeed now it’s the only way she can. For so many years she didn’t have it, and then she did, and then she lost it, and now she has it back, has _him_ back, and she is so determined she will never lose either of them again.

Even now as they lie in bed together, Fitz slightly sitting up while she stays with her head on his chest, she can’t stop thinking about how there were so many times where this might never have happened. A different class, one less shock, a different word, one more minute… so many times they might not have made it to this moment right here, with her head on his heart as he looks at a tablet, watching their daughter sleep in the room next to theirs.

Once they thought time was fixed, and that nothing they ever did could change what was already laid before them. Once he would have thought that they were always meant to end up here, even if he didn’t exactly have faith in what _here_ was. Jemma’s never been so sure. It seems, even now, that nothing is.

“She really loves that story about fish, huh?” Fitz smiles as he watches their daughter sleep, stuffed monkey clutched to her chest, her storybook on the table beside her. “Can’t help but worry she’s going to freak out when she sees a real one.”

Except Alya. Jemma is sure of her.

Fitz switches off the tablet and the lamp, sliding down until he is horizontal. Kissing her on the hair he wraps his arms around her, and Jemma uses the feeling to ground her as much as it possibly can. His heart thumps reassuringly under her ear.

“What’s wrong?” He asks immediately, arms tightening slightly around her in response. When she doesn’t answer him, he only asks more urgently, “Jemma, what is it?”

“Why does something have to be wrong?” She whispers.

“‘Cause there just is. I can tell.”

 _Psychically linked._ That’s what they were called back in the day. Always able to read each other’s minds. Even if she didn’t know it exactly, had no irrefutable proof, but Fitz’ thoughts always appeared in her head, and his inner voice always seemed to speak out alongside her own. Even while she was dissecting the cat, while her own thoughts had ben along the lines of _how utterly fascinating,_ Fitz’s voice has been there groaning and going _ugh that is bloody disgusting._

“It’s…” She starts and then stops.

It’s something that’s been troubling her ever since their daughter was born. Fitz had held Alya as though she were made of spun sugar, looked at her as though she were made of gold. The look on his face was something Jemma had known completely and yet not at all. He never looked at her like that, and she was so very glad about it.

But then he turned from Alya to her, and the same look was on his face. That look that told her in a second why he’d been willing to freeze himself for decades, why he’d dove through a hole in the universe, why he’d given her the last of the oxygen at the bottom of the ocean… It all flashed before her and in an instant she’d felt so very loved and so very afraid.

Alya is two now. Soon she’ll be three. Soon they’ll have to go back and finish what they’ve started, rescue those they’ve left behind. For so many years Jemma has managed to swallow her worry and convince herself they are some time away from ever having to carry out their plan. Fitz has too. He says they’re still some time away, but they both know he’s closer than he’ll admit to even himself.

So she has to ask him this. She has to tell him why she’s so afraid even though it might change something irrevocably, cut something deep down that can never be fixed. But it’s not about them anymore. As soon as Alya was born, they ceased to matter. But she loves him so much and it’s hard to find the right words to say what she has to. If she loved him less, perhaps, then she might be able to talk about it more.

“What is it?” He asks softly, his hand running gently up and down her arm.

“You won’t like it,” she warns, afraid by how much words have the power to harm, even after all this time.

“You can tell me anything, you know that.” He presses a gentle kiss to the top of her hair. “Nothing could ever make me love you less.”

“That’s just it…” Heart in her throat, she inhales the courage she needs to say, “I think that’s what I’m asking you to do.”

The hand on her arm stills, resting lightly on her skin. What was so comforting a second ago feels as though it burns now.

“What?” He’s not angry, just incredulous, as though he doesn’t understand. “What are you on about?”

Unable to look up at him, she looks straight ahead into the darkness beyond their bed, thinking about the darkness that lies even further beyond that. All of this darkness and for what? She’s too scared to move in case they never make it back to this position again.

“There’s a chance this might not work,” she tells him, voice small. “There’s a chance that I might not come back and I-” A deep breath. “I need to know that you could go on.”

He stiffens beneath her, and his arms pull her ever so slightly closer to him, as though she’s leaving this very instant. “I don’t understand,” he says, but she thinks that he does, he just doesn’t want to.

“Did you mean it, Fitz?”

“Did I mean what?”

“When you said to me that you couldn’t live if I-” She breaks off with a shaky breath. All of these detours and roundabouts just instead of saying what she needs to say. She’s just been carrying it for so long, she’s not sure how she’ll feel without it.

A deep, cleansing breath, and then she tries again.

“All I know is that you once told me you weren’t strong enough to live in a world that didn’t have me in it. I’m asking if you still feel the same way. I’m – I’m asking you if you can go on without me, Fitz. And if you can’t, then I’m asking you to do it anyway.”

She twists herself around to look up at him. His eyes are filled with tears, and all at once she’s reminded of the ocean he once risked dying to save her from. All of these years and the pain of that moment hasn’t lessened any. Right now, it feels like the water is rushing in all over again.

“Jemma,” he breathes, voice no more than a whisper. A tear escapes and she has an urge to kiss it away.

“I know you love me. I know how much. But it’s not just us anymore.”

His face twists but his arms don’t move from around her and she takes this as a positive sign. He doesn’t say anything at all, but she can hear how fast his heart races from underneath her.

“So if it helps you to move on and to be there for Alya then it’s alright if you have to love me less than you have before.”

Jemma’s not sure if she could ever love Fitz less than she does. It would go against every fibre of being, every cell in her body that yearns for him. But she has to know that if she weren’t here anymore then he could live a proper life without her, and if he has to love her less or differently than he does now in order to do that then she understands.

“Jemma,” he repeats, voice only a little stronger. “She’s my daughter. _Our_ daughter. How could you even _think_ -?”

The betrayal in his voice cuts straight through everything else and pierces her heart. It’s not that. Never that.

“No, I don’t think that,” she says fervently, before the demons run wild in his head. “I don’t. I just know you, that’s all.”

“If you did then you wouldn’t ask me this,” he says, but he’s not angry, just sad and perhaps a little heartbroken. Just five minutes ago he was watching Alya and talking about fish, and Jemma can’t help but worry that they’ll never be able to get back to those moments again.

“You’d try to go back,” she says softly. “You’d try to undo it and I’m telling you I don’t want you to even try. I don’t want you to fix it.”

“Just as easy as that, is it?” He narrows his eyes at her, but the tremble of his bottom lip is impossible to ignore. “You want us to just live without you?”

“No, Fitz. I want you to have a _life.”_ Tears burn in her eyes and she’s just able to manage to say, “You both deserve that,” before bursting into tears.

She hadn’t wanted to cry because there was always the possibility that she’d hurt him enough that he’d just leave her, and she’s gotten used to Fitz drying her eyes and holding her until her sobs subside, and then just holding her some more.

It turns out she needn’t have worried, and instantly she feels foolish for doing so. He smoothes back her hair and whispers _it’s alright_ over and over again. His voice is soft, the words soothing, and she lets herself be carried away by it to that place where she feels utterly and completely safe and loved.

It’s a minute before her sobs ease and she’s able to draw breath into her lungs again. For so many weeks, months, perhaps even years, she has agonised about this, and she has always pictured the different outcomes, each heartbreaking in its own way. Never had she pictured this, and now she doesn’t understand why. This was the most likely of all.

Fitz’s hand is still smoothing back her hair, but then it stills and she can feel the gentle touch of his lips as he presses a soft kiss there.

“No,” he whispers, his breath warm on her skin. “No, I won’t.”

“What?” She says hoarsely, looking back up at him.

“I won’t love you less, Jemma.” He gives her a small smile, and it reminds her of a dimly lit, empty restaurant and _what else was I gonna do?_

She frowns, feeling her forehead pucker. “But-”

“No,” he says. “I won’t. I can’t. I wouldn’t even know how to. But more than that – I don’t want to.”

“Fitz…”

“No,” he repeats, and instead of the anger she feared she’d see in his eyes she sees only love, and more of it than she can imagine. “I’ll look after Alya, Jemma. I’ll make sure she eats her vegetables and goes to bed on time and doesn’t accidentally create a monster fish that eats people.”

She laughs a little, and his resulting grin soothes her in the way it always has, even without knowing it, since they were sixteen.

“She’ll know all about you. About how smart you are and kind you are and how you risked everything to save the world so many times. And she’ll know how much I loved you, and how much you loved her.” He shakes his head. “She won’t ever doubt it.”

He squeezes her gently. “But I won’t love you less. I don’t know how. If anything, I love you more every day, and I don’t want that to change.”

“Neither do I, but what about what you _said?_ ” She looks at him imploringly. “I just want to help you in case…”

In case the worst happens now, or ten years from now. Whether it’s this mission or some freak accident. The universe is entirely beyond their control. Try as they might, they can only protect each other from some of it.

“I know,” he says softly, tears shimmering in his eyes once again. “I once said that I wasn’t strong enough to live in a world that doesn’t have you in it, and it’s still true. I’m not. But, Jemma, there is no world that doesn’t have you in it, not anymore.”

She feels her heart stutter in her chest as she realises what he means.

“She is so like you. More like you than you’ll ever know. I could name a thousand things about the two of you that are the same and there would probably still be more.”

Jemma thinks of Alya’s smile and her love of animals and her innate desire to _create_ , and thinks of how she could say the same to him.

“She is _ours,_ Jemma. Proof that the best things we do are always done together. We exist always now, no matter what. You would always be with me.”

Half of him and half of her and wholly herself. Alya’s the magnificent answer she once hoped she’d find in the stars, and had almost given up hope of ever doing so.

“But we’d be alright. If anything ever happened to you then we’d be heartbroken and devasted and lost. It would be the most painful thing.” He gives her a tearful smile, squeezing her gently as though he can’t even bear to think about it and needs to remind himself that she is here. Then he nods, almost reassuringly. “We’d be alright.”

It’s not just a weight lifted, rather it’s a weight gone, and Jemma finds that she breathes so much easier than she has in a while. She loves him more than there are words or stars, and it makes sense that she once believed there was nobody in the whole world she loved more than him.

She reaches up to kiss him, even though it just doesn’t seem enough. “Thank you,” she whispers.

He looks at her quizzically, one eyebrow raised in such a way that she can’t help but smile. “For what?”

What to say? For making her this happy, for giving her his whole heart, for keeping hers safe. For their beautiful, wonderful daughter who sleeps next door and dreams of fish and a planet she’s never even seen.

She shakes her head softly. Words just don’t seem enough, so instead she just tells him, “Everything.”

He smiles at her in response, so full of love, and she returns it before burying her head into his chest in her favourite position for sleeping. His breathing begins to even out, chest rising and falling familiarly.

 _I love you_ Jemma thinks before allowing herself to drift off, Fitz’s heart beating strong and steady underneath her cheek.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed it! Please feel free to leave kudos/comments. Please feel free not to. Either way, I hope you have a lovely day and are all managing to stay safe and well <3


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